


Empty Houses, Empty Hearts

by SarcasmFish (Alcyonidae)



Category: Zombies Run!
Genre: Angst, Backstory, F/M, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-29
Updated: 2016-10-29
Packaged: 2018-08-27 15:14:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8406658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alcyonidae/pseuds/SarcasmFish
Summary: Janine requires Sam's help to figure out why Runner Five has broken off the usual path during a routine supply run.  Where is she going?





	

Another brisk morning, another brisk run.  The pavement beneath her feet was stiff from the cold.  This was one of those neighborhoods where all the houses looked almost identical, right down to their landscaping.  Each house was a similar floorplan.  Each had maybe a mirrored layout or had paint that was a different shade of brown or the tree was planted on the right side of the yard instead of the left.  It was one of those neighborhoods where they plowed everything down to the dirt and started over, layering the houses one after the other nearly on top of themselves.  You could stand between them and almost touch wall to wall or peek out your window and see right into your neighbor’s bathroom.

“Runner Five, this is a simple supply run.  You can ignore most things in this area.  They’ve been picked fairly clean already.”

It was a maze, but she navigated each street with the assistance of the voice in her headset.  Cars were always an obstacle, but luckily an easy one to avoid.  They no longer moved.  Some were parked along the side of the street and appeared as if they had been left by their owner just the night before, tires aligned against the curb, sun visor propped up in the windshield, ready to be warmed up in the morning for work.  But no one went to work anymore.

Other obstacles were more distracting, suitcases abandoned on sidewalks, front doors of houses left yawning open, windows of cars and houses shattered, and bones.  Bones in cars, bones on once manicured lawns, bones with clothes, bones with collars.  She had quickly learned to let her eyes gloss over the bones.

The sun was just peeking over the horizon, casting shades of ruddy maroons and pinks against the houses.  A majority of the automatic lights still worked, lighting porches and front doors with welcoming beacons.  A sprinkler system cast its hissing mists into the frosty morning air, the droplets sparkling like crystals as they fell to the frost laden blades of grass below.  The grass had long since cast off its need for the sprinklers.  Gone were the luxurious beds of genetically altered green carpet, now replaced by tall wild sprouts that waved in the light breeze, flaunting its freedom from the dreaded label of common weed.  But the sprinklers would valiantly hold their schedule for as long as the little black solar panels would allow, even while the water froze to the green blades beneath it.

She slowed to a walk, hands on her hips to help catch her breath.  On hour two of the run she must have been quite deep into this subdivision.  Little sparks of personality from the rows of identical houses caught her wavering attention; a different colored mailbox, red shutters instead of black, a pink flamingo standing brave in the front yard.

“Take a right… wait, no, no.  A left.  Yes, there.  That street,” Janine’s frustrated voice crackled through the headset as she turned to comply.  “All of these streets look almost exactly alike.  It’s hard to tell where you are through the cameras.”

A house caught her attention drawing her to a stop beside a bicycle with a wagon attached to the back over burdened with picked over goods.  She stared at the little nondescript two floor house, eyes squinting slightly in the growing morning light.

It could have been any of the other houses.  It was one where the driveway and garage were situated on the left-hand side.  All of the blinds in the house had been pulled closed.  There was a tiny balcony on the second floor, where one could step out and watch the neighborhood teem with life.  Well, in the past you could have.  Now all you might glimmer were feral dogs or your neighbor gone grey. 

Familiarity struck her with an inaudible gasp.  It had been years, long lonely years, but that ugly door knocker drew her in like an embrace.  It was supposed to be a bumblebee, but looked instead like a squat snowman, the wings its stubby arms.  The now chipping paint did little to help improve its beauty.

With slow unsteady steps she approached the house, stepping through the high grass that had once been groomed like a prized show dog.

“Runner Five?  What are you doing?”  Janine barked through the speakers in the headset, even her most normal tone one that demanded.  “This neighborhood is just a shortcut to the warehouse.  We can send another runner back through later if you’ve seen something useful.”

The voice in the headset seemed so far away.  Something had gripped her and was reeling her in like a fish on a line.  Even if she could respond she wouldn’t now.  Her path continued, slow, but unwavering.

There was a tiny garden plot set before the front windows.  Not anything like a true garden that would spout useful vegetables, but instead one that held manicured hedges and bold showy flowers.  Or rather, they used to.  Now it was overrun by the tall grass, the shorter flowers hidden away and more than likely crowded out by pushy weeds.

The walkway up to the front door was clear, a runway inviting her in, just a few sparse weeds fighting their way up through the seams of the sidewalk to feebly block her way forward.  They grasped at her clothes as she stepped past.

“Five?  We don’t have time for this.  What are you doing?”

Before the door sat a cheery welcome mat, modern font, turquoise and black colors brightening the shadows.  The faux brass door knob seemed to glow, months of a lack of grubby hands pawing their way over it retaining its polish.  It would be locked.  Why was she wasting her time?

Despite the mental warning she found herself reaching out to it with a shaking hand.  The metal was almost warm under her fingers.  She could almost will herself to believe it was warm because someone else had just touched it, though the only beings within any measurable distance would have only a cold pallid touch.

A deep breath gave her courage to twist the knob with a hesitant jerk.  The door swung open on silent hinges revealing darkness within.  The weak sunlight of morning lit a beam like a red carpet inviting her inside.  She stood before it, breathless, though she had long since caught her breath from the run.

It was dangerous and incredibly stupid.  Anything could be inside this house, murderers, risen dead, rabid dogs even.  Outside Janine could monitor cameras setup throughout her run, inside there was only the small camera attached to her headband that faced forward.  There was no one to watch her back in here, no one to warn her.

She took a step inside.

“Five!  What are you doing?  Get out of there!”  Janine’s voice had grown fantic, an inflection so rarely heard.  The woman was always calm, always in control.  The sound grew a bit more distant for a moment, as if she had turned away from the mic, the words nearly lost if she had not been shouting them.  “You!  Go and fetch Mr. Yao!  It’s an emergency.  Quickly!”

The temperature was warmer inside the house and for a moment she almost let herself believe that the furnace was on to welcome her.  Or maybe a cheery fire had been lit in the fireplace with warm drinks ready to be pushed into eager, numb hands.

But it was dark in the living room.  Light from a few windows cast long solemn shadows against the furniture.  She stood in the doorway, frozen, eyes wide and searching.  Her skin tingled with awareness, attempting to warn her of the dangers of her actions.  Her limited range of hearing strained in the cloying silence.  The smallest knock or creak would send her fleeing.

She took a long moment to steady herself, still roaming over every last inch of the room.  The shaking in her hands eased to trembles, but her lungs refused to stop gasping in gulps of stale air.

Much like the cookie-cutter pattern of houses outside, the inside seemed more of the same.  Couches, coffee table, lamps, pictures of inoffensive pastoral landscapes adorning the walls.

She walked along the perimeter of the room.  The rest of the house could have been picked clean for supplies, but the main living room appeared untouched.  A thick coat of dust anchored objects in place.

A clattering in her headset had her jumping, her hand flaying out to knock over a picture frame and nearly sending her sprinting back to the door.  A new, breathless voice over her headset followed the scramble, frantic and quick.  “Runner Five!  Are you alright?  What’s happened?”

It was a voice she had grown quite fond of, one that signaled safety, one that made her laugh.  In normal circumstances, it would have calmed her, guided her, led her to sanctuary.  But now it was miles away and she was here in this unremarkable suburban house full of memories.

“Five, it’s Sam.”  The voice was steadier now when it spoke, confident and soothing.  “You have… you have us all very worried here.  Are you alright?

The picture frame had sent a little cloud of dust poofing out in its wake.  It looked so out of place now.  One little solider fallen out of line.  Not only had it sent such a disharmonious racket throughout the still house, but now there were marks in the dust where it had once sat.  It was like removing the covering over a dead body, a disruption of the peace in death.

“Look, Five, I’m not sure if you can hear me.  Maybe something’s gone wrong with your earpiece or the connection, but you need to leave that house.”  That steady voice was growing more concerned.  An edge of panic pushing into the careful composure.  “There’s a hoard shambling around the edge of the neighborhood and they look to be shifting in your direction.”

The house was still.  The house was silent.  What was the saying?  As still and silent as death?  No.  This was not the time to think like that.

She reached out to turn the picture frame back up into its rightful place.  The marks in the dust would still be there, but at least it would rejoin order.  Her hand froze as she lifted the picture.  Unsteady fingers gripped the frame hard enough to whiten them as it was lifted closer to her eyes.  In the dim light she could make out a small painting.  It was a duck on a lake.  Nothing fanciful, nothing noteworthy about the painting, just a rather ordinary duck sitting in the middle of a lake.

“That’s a fine duck, Five.”  It was Janine again, she was speaking like she was leaning over Sam’s shoulder.  “Bring it with you if you’d like, but those zom’s have turned in your direction.  You need to go now!”

“No, no, wait, Janine.  Wait.  I understand now.”

“What are you talking about, Mr. Yao?”

“That duck…”  His voice had grown softer, he was not speaking to Janine, but across the distance between them.  “This is your house, Five.  Or at least, your parents’ house.  Isn’t it?”

 

\----

“Alright, I spilled my guts out in the most embarrassing of ways and told you all the skeletons in my closet.  What about you?  It’s only fair.”

The doctor had demanded she stay overnight in their makeshift infirmary after her unscheduled overnight run through a forest of the undead.  No bites, just a few scratches and bruises, but the possibility of hypothermia had her wrapped up like a mummy in one of the spare cots.  Sam had arrived not long after she had been pronounced safe to keep.  He was drooping and frazzled.  He had still not slept and while she had known she should have sent him off to bed, she selfishly welcomed his company.

Despite the chill still lingering in them she had pulled her hands out from under the blankets to sign her answer.  _You thought I was dead!_

“I did not!  I had the utmost faith in your return!”  His serious tone was never very convincing.  “Alright, I thought were zombie chow, but you can hardly blame me.”

He leaned back in the rickety foldable chair beside her, leaning an elbow into the cot.  “So, spill it.  Before this all went flipside what were you doing?  A miserable office job?  Uni?  Studying physics no doubt!”

_Why physics?_

“What was that last one, I don’t know it.”

She paused to fingerspell the word out for him and then repeated the sign.

“Oh!  Physics, you know... force of motion, drag, acceleration.”  When she continued to stare at him with a blank incredulous look on her face he finally supplied the answer.  “Because you’re a runner!  Oh, nevermind.”

She rolled her eyes at him, but continued.  _You went to uni and made your parents proud.  I went to uni and disappointed mine._

He leaned a little closer, but said nothing more.

_My parents were always worried about my future with my disability.  They wanted me to be able to stand on my own if anything happened to them._

“How did you disappoint them?”  His voice was soft now, thoughtful.  Even in the quiet of the infirmary she struggled to hear him, relying on reading his lips to fill in the gaps.

_I studied art._   She forced a grin onto her lips.  _They were so mad.  They threatened to not help pay for my education, but I had plenty of scholarships because of my problems.  Finally, they just cut off contact with me.  They thought I’d come around, but I was stubborn._

He reached out rest his hand on her arm, such a simple innocent gesture stilled the shake that had begun to grow there and not because of the cold.  “I bet you would have become such a famous artist they would be rushing back to you.  A whole museum in your honor.  All manner of people clamoring to interview you on the telly.  Well, now you can outrun the paparazzi, at least.”

She watched him a moment, not wanting to respond because it would mean losing the warmth laid against her arm.  But she found she needed to tell him, needed to explain all these things from the past that were now so meaningless.

_I sent them my first painting.  It wasn’t very good.  Just a stupid little duck sitting in the middle of a pond.  I don’t know if they even got it._

 

\---

She gasped in a ragged breath, fingers still clutching the picture frame as if it would be wrenched from her grip by some phantom force.

“That’s it, isn’t it?  The duck painting you sent them.  They did get it.  And they framed it and kept it out on display.”

“Mr. Yao we don’t have time for this.  They’re on the street.  She has to leave now!”

“They were proud of you.”

She tore her gaze away from the picture, eyes burning with a force she struggled to hold back.

“They know she’s in that house.  If she doesn’t leave she’s going to be trapped!”

“Five, you have to leave now.”  His voice was louder, full of urgency.  “You have to come home!”

The barely contained panic in his tone broke something in her, the revere snapped and she jolted, whipping to look around.  She could hear them now, the groaning, the shuffling, the dragging.  There had to be a lot and they had to be close for her to be able to make out their sounds.  Had she left the front door open?

“The back, there’s a door in the back.  Go through it now and you can make it over the fence.  So far they’re only in the front yard.”  He was yelling now, something she had not heard even when she was lost to the darkness.  “Come home, Five!  Run!  Now!”

She found the back door unlocked and bolted from it, vaulting over a small chain link fence in the backyard.  But now she found herself lost in a maze of backyards full of lonely children’s toys, trampolines, play equipment with tempting swings, and even a pool half full of jungle green water.  She leapt another fence, the metal top digging into the palm of her hand painfully.  There were no cameras back here, no way for her guides to help her navigate.

A chanced glance back over her shoulder revealed that the ashen, somewhat limbless masses had made it through the house and were now trying to assault the novelty of fences.  She stopped, two backyards down from them, to gain her bearings and noticed the open gate swinging free of the fence.  She fled towards it, slamming it shut behind her.  Could zombies climb fences?  Could they open gates?  Now was not the best of times to conduct such a science experiment.

She made her way through the front lawn of this new house and back onto the street.

“There you are!  I can see you on one of the cameras now!  Good.  Head down that street and take a left.  It should take you straight out of this development.  I think you’ve left the bulk of them behind you.  There are one or two strays, but you can easily out run them.”  Was that a relieved sigh or just the wind brushing over the mic?  “Come home, Five.”

She glanced back over her shoulder again.  To check for her followers or just to see the back side of that house one last time?  It wasn’t something she was willing to admit to herself just yet.

The journey back was as uneventful as the journey out.  The strays turned out to be one devoid of legs and another with its foot stuck in a flowerpot.  The sun crested over the horizon and cast its warming rays over the sullen landscape.  The desolate buildings looked down with sad empty windows at the lone runner.

The pack on her back was light, but heavy on her conscience.  She stopped once or twice to pick up a needed supply, but the voices in her headset assured her it was not necessary.  Despite the confidence from Sam that everything was alright, she felt nothing but the opposite.  His consistent hopeful chatter did little to alleviate her sorrow and guilt.

In sight of the township in the distance she picked up another tail of corpses.  At least running was something she did well, something that unburdened her.  With a burst of speed she cleared the length to the gates, their blaring sirens a welcome even to her dulled senses.

Janine was standing inside the gates, a scowl on her serious face.

“Runner Five, I must know –“

Sam arrived at a sprint, his orange hoodie a lighthouse in the storm of other people crowded around.  “Janine, it’s alright.  Just… just let this one go.  There was no harm done.”  He held his hands up in a placating manner.  “It is the apocalypse after all.”

The woman seemed to weigh the two of them, eyes flicking from the runner to Sam.  The scowl lessened and she nodded, retreating to be replaced by the doctor, her eyes full of concern.

Sam stepped forward, an intermediary.  “They didn’t get anywhere close to her.  She’s fine.”

“I know, Sam.  But I have to check everyone back from a run.”  He seemed about to protest further.  “I’ll take good care of her, I promise.”

He finally nodded and turned back to the runner beside him, turning shy.  “Do you… do you want me to hold onto that until you get back?”

She followed the path of his eyes down to the picture still clasped in her hand.  She had taken it with her.  She hadn’t even realized.  The fingers gripping the edging were numb and cold from the force they had held.  She lifted the simple little duck, eyes burning with that withheld emotion again.  The grief and guilt had followed her.  They seemed to be something she would not out run.

There was a brush of fingers against her hand and she pulled herself away to meet the worry in his eyes.

With a burdened breath she handed the picture frame to him, grateful when he took it with a careful reverence.  He signed to her then, so rare an occurrence, so worried over his skill, so anxious of getting it wrong.  _I’ll take care of it._

She forced a little smile of thanks, not something fake, just forced through a layer of turmoil, like surfacing through a pond full of frogs and Lilly pads.

_Thank you._


End file.
